"The Stanford effort appears to be one of the first to find a new way to improve lithium-ion batteries not by altering the chemistry itself but by adding this self-healing property."

It makes me wonder what studies have been done to conclude that the number of effective charging cycles are reduced because of broken connections versus the battery chemistry itself losing its potential through extended use. While I applaud the concept and can see how it would be helpful when these conditions occur, I don't know enough to understand if this is really a valid solution for general battery use or just a specific failure mode among others. Regardless, the technology is amazing and I admire the work of these researchers - we may very well find some spin-off applications from this research.

I say it will be great to have batteries lasting long while in use, and every one seems 2 be kken 2 see it soon , same goes for me as it will be great not to keep many batteries in resrve for the games, remote , kids toys etc.so looking forward for a rapid development.

That's true, shehan, and what I think is most interesting about this is that while other scientists are working on new chemistries to make batteries last longer, this actually affects the structure of the battery and not the chemistry. It seems also like too easy of a fix for a problem that has been until now seemingly complicated to solve. I guess time will tell.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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